Maki Ueda – Page 4 – on Olfactory Art

OLFACTORY LABYRINTH VER. 6

– Pheromone as a Message –

space installation (2024)

DATE: November 7th, 2024
CONTEXT: Exhibition “Koō-suru” at Aizumi Art Museum
CURATOR: Asuka Taniguchi and the students of the Graduate School of Global Arts, Tokyo University of the Arts
PRODUCER: Graduate School of Global Arts, Tokyo University of the Arts

[Concept]

This installation features nine seemingly identical bottles. Six of them contain different synthesized pheromones and three of them contain only a dissolvent. The strings that suspend the bottles descend in the bottles, absorb the scents and disperse them into the air. Moving autonomously like a mobile, the bottles simulate the flow of people in an urban setting. This work examines olfactory perception in a context where the movements of scents and individuals constantly shift in relation to one another.

The concept critically reflects on society’s fascination with pheromones. In nature, pheromones are vital messengers for survival. For example, truffles contain androstenol, a pheromone found in male pig saliva. When a female pig detects it, she assumes a mating posture, which humans use as a clue to locate truffles underground. Androstenol is also present in human sweat and urine, but it does not evoke the same behavioral response in humans. The vomeronasal organ, responsible for perceiving pheromones, has atrophied in humans, rendering these substances ineffective in the way they function for animals.

Even so, the belief in pheromones persists. In this installation, observe your reaction as a bottle passes by. Do you sense anything? Where is the line between pheromone and scent? The work explores boundaries: what can be smelled and what cannot, what is felt and what is not, what attracts or repels.

[About the Series]

Olfactory Labyrinth is a series that explores themes of olfaction and movement. This version builds upon ver. 4, while ver. 7 shares a similar structure but focuses on the facets of scents carried by mountain air.

[Medium]

Bamboo skewers, glass bottles, strings, silk threads, synthetic fragrance materials (aromatic substances presumed to be pheromones), and solvents.

[Exhibited Pheromones]

All pheromones displayed are perfume materials sourced from PerfumersWorld. They are not animal-derived but are artificially synthesized, and provided at lower concentrations than recommended to ensure safety.

A: α-Androstenol (Sample Bottle 1)

B: β-Androstenol

C: Estratetraenol (Sample Bottle 2)

D: Copulins

E: Androstenone (Sample Bottle 3)

F: Androsterone

Smell them individually (focused), or all together (zoomed out) on the test strips. It was revealed during the exhibition that younger individuals were more likely to detect the scents, while many people over the age of 30 reported being unable to smell them easily. Therefore, the experience of “not being able to smell” is also an integral part of this work.

NI-HO-HI

– Synasthesia of Scent and Color –

space installation (2023)

COLLABORATION BETWEEN CHRISTOPH LAUDAMIEL (MASTER PERFUMER) AND MAKI UEDA (OLFACTORY ARTIST)
DATE: 15 Oct (Premier) – 15 Nov 2023
VENUE: Supernova Kawasaki, Opening Exhibition
PRODUCTION / SPONSOR : BÉLAIR LAB

This is a collaboration work in which olfactory artist Maki Ueda visualizes “FADE-IN”, the signature fragrance of the venue developed by Christophe Laudamiel, a chief perfumer of BÉLAIR LAB.

A fragrance is composed of many facets. To fully understand it, it is interesting to chromatograph it or dissect it into different components. We are playing here with those facets olfactively and visually to expand the understanding of the public with the fragrance and to expand the public realm of emotions.

The origami flowers, scent sculptures, diffuse fragrance from a liquid pool through the rice paper. Like a chromatograph, we have isolated the scent ingredients in a fresh phase and a darker phase, each applied with its own color:

[CYAN] Phase Light/Clean/Loud: fresh air green foliage accord, abstract, muget…
[MAGENDA] Phase Dark/Resinous/Sensual: amber labdanum, patchouli, frankincense, immortelle, mimosa resin, strawberry

Flowers are tinted in different colors corresponding to each smell phase as a result of chromatography which takes about a week. The colors visualize the smell. It’s an ever-changing installation that shows that the lighter phase travels faster than the darker, and dries faster.

In one corner some flowers play one phase only. In another corner some flowers play the other phase. Society also does chromatography regularly of its populations, cultures or behaviors and separating them according to sharp loudness or colors. Here, the darker often placed last part of the chromatography or of society or of the fragrance is brought forward and the light loud high-pitch part, that comes up first in chromatogram and still too often in society or in loud music is shown on a less prominent side and softened with flowers.

The title of this work, Ni-ho-hi (にほひ/丹秀ひ) is an archaic origin of modern Japanese’s ni-o-i (におい、fragrance, scent, or smell), but somewhat with a synesthetic touch: it refers to something vibrant, shining pink with aura, and visual divinity of red and vermilion. “Ni” is the original ore of red mercury, also called vermilion sand, which was used to paint the torii gates of shrines. This work questions the synaesthesia of the ancients for those of us living in the modern age.

The name of the venue, “SUPERNOVA,” derives from supernova, newborn stars. The beautiful colors of the supernova are also a visualization of the chromatography of the atmosphere. Each of these tiny flowers are mini-novas, representing the birth of a new star, SUPERNOVA.

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